1. Field
The present disclosure relates to optical communication equipment and, more specifically but not exclusively, to operations, administration, and management of network resources and services resources for an optical layer of a communication network.
2. Description of the Related Art
This section introduces aspects that may help facilitate a better understanding of the disclosure. Accordingly, the statements of this section are to be read in this light and are not to be understood as admissions about what is in the prior art or what is not in the prior art.
Operations, administration, and management (OAM) functions are used to detect faults, defects, and/or performance degradation in order to enable network operators to maintain and guarantee reliable user-data transport over their communication networks. Example OAM functions include but are not limited to continuous surveillance of network paths, e.g., for possible structural defects and/or performance degradation, and on-demand diagnosis of malfunctioning network paths, e.g., for defect localization. Optical-layer OAM protocols are not well defined yet in standardization committees, but are critical to troubleshooting optical-layer performance problems. Due to the increasing reliance of telecommunications service providers on optical transport, optical-layer network and service OAM protocols are currently being actively developed.